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Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

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Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#101

Post by wonderbear »

amrx431 wrote: post #12
hkai wrote: post #2

I am planning to hopefully marry my girlfriend in the next couple of years and her parents are already asking for "at least a small amount like 10,000 USD", because "I'm white anyway", meaning I must be rich. Taking into account all the abuse she had to take from them, and their lazy and useless way of life, they're not getting a penny from me. Many people though feel powerless to resist and ruin themselves financial…

Same shit is happening in India. If you dont have a H1B and never worked in US, good luck finding a girl. I am 27 right now and that too a low caste. I am seriously contemplating giving up hopes of marriage and remaining single. Will be tough as I dont have a family. All my family members were killed when I was young. I have stopped bothering and now just bury myself in work and reading to avoid the darkness.

I'm sorry you're in that situation. I guess I don't have anything constructive to say, I just hope you find a chosen family.

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#102

Post by beefield »

blfr wrote: post #55

A good start would be a law that ensures a woman’s claim on marital property in the case of a divorce. Current Chinese law makes no such provision, and thus provides a strong disincentive to marry and a very powerful incentive to charge higher bride prices. We have laws like this in Europe. Marriages keep happening later and TFRs keep plummeting. Why would it work any different in China. Journalists always push their…

> All while populations that implemented them keep collapsing.

You say it like it would be a bad thing? It's a bit weird because I have had this impression that overpopulation, not underpopulation is some kind of a problem here on our home planet...

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#103

Post by kaitai »

liftbigweights wrote: post #80
stonecraftwolf wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. This thread is killing me. This might be the only comment so far to even consider women as having agency. When you give women control over their own bodies and equal enough rights to support autonomy — so, treat them like people, basically - it turns out they don’t want to have so many kids, because growing and birthing humans is incredibly taxing and traumatic. The trauma, in particular, is weirdly something t…

But the argument is that women want to have more kids but can't because of career, maternity leave, benefits, etc. Also, survey after survey says that women want 2 or 3 kids ( average is about 2.5 ). But the fertility rate is far less than 2. So there is a disconnect between what women want and what women have. The question is why? Why aren't women able to achieve their goals? Of all the answers given, all of them ar…

Dude, no one talks about degree 2 vs degree 3 peritoneal tears or peeing when you jumprope. That is not talked about. I don't think you have any idea of the actual trauma involved in birth: the membrane sweeps, the cervix check, the coercion into surgery under the threat of your kid dying, being essentially chained to a bed unable to leave because of an IV and the monitor when you know just being able to walk down the hall would make you feel better. The epidural gone in wrong, paralyzing one side of your body but leaving the other side in great pain, and then being unable to push because of the asymmetry. The nurse telling you you're not allowed to push until the ob-gyn comes, but the ob-gyn is out to lunch. Afterward, the mastitis, the bleeding nipples, the sharp stabbing pain in your pelvis when you try to do side plank. Yeah.

Yeah, that's not why we tell girls not to get pregnant.

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#104

Post by Aunche »

stonecraftwolf wrote: post #74
buckminster wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's contraception. The solution is for the government to randomly introduce placebos into the contraceptive supply. Or just accept that, given the choice, people don't want kids that much.

This. This thread is killing me. This might be the only comment so far to even consider women as having agency. When you give women control over their own bodies and equal enough rights to support autonomy — so, treat them like people, basically - it turns out they don’t want to have so many kids, because growing and birthing humans is incredibly taxing and traumatic. The trauma, in particular, is weirdly something t…

You're unnecessarily turning this into sexism issue, ironically ignoring how men also have a part in birth rate. All humans, men or women, have agency, but they're most likely going to act in their best interests. That's why we can generalize large scale behavior with some degree of accuracy. Obviously that's the not going to capture the nuances of every individual decision, but that's the best that we can do when discussing the effects of policy.

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#105

Post by ForHackernews »

pmorici wrote: post #90
ForHackernews wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe people don't want to bring children into a world that will be worse off in many ways than the one they grew up in? That hypothesis would correspond with the observation that it's the most educated, most long-term-focused people in (currently) stable societies that are delaying or avoiding children.

"Maybe people don't want to bring children into a world that will be worse off in many ways than the one they grew up in?" Objective measurements show that the world better off than it was and still improving. [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCm9Ng0bbEQ

That's assuming those trends will continue unabated. There's plenty of reason to believe they will not[0]

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/william...

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#106

Post by khuey »

user5994461 wrote: post #72
chinamarriage wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$10,000 is typical for bride-price in China and only a bit higher than average annual Chinese income. The Chinese do save more than 30% of their income so that is about three years of savings for average earners in China, which is quite high for them admittedly. If you work in a Western country and have a decent job (otherwise why should their daughter marry you anyway?) you can save $10,000 in less than two years. M…

If you work in a Western country (Europe) and have a decent job, there is no way that you save that much unless living with flatmates or parents for years. Yearly income is around 10k, 20k or 30k before taxes, depending which part of Europe it is. It all goes to taxes, then rent, then food and car.

Living with flatmates or parents for years is exactly what they do in China.

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#107

Post by ForHackernews »

fastball wrote: post #86
adventured wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were the famous studies from a few years ago in Israel and Germany that sparked a small cultural spat in the West about regretting motherhood and having a child being a source of immense unhappiness.[1][2] It's of course obvious why they generated so much outrage, centuries of propaganda about motherhood being bliss and the highest calling for women. To quote from the WaPo article below (some people may not be…

So is the solution for women to stop having children and for humanity to die off? Also, I think the study needs to be much more longitudinal than "2 years on". Arguably the pay off for having children comes much, much later. For some, the pay off doesn't really come until they have grandchildren. Yes, having children is often a monumental PITA. But humans are social animals, and nothing is really comparable to fill t…

> So is the solution for women to stop having children and for humanity to die off?

What a ridiculous false dichotomy. Earth has a huge (and increasing) number of humans on it. We are in far greater danger from unsustainable depletion of natural resources than we are "dying off" from gradually declining birthrates.

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#108

Post by xkcd-sucks »

beefield wrote: post #102
blfr wrote: post #55

A good start would be a law that ensures a woman’s claim on marital property in the case of a divorce. Current Chinese law makes no such provision, and thus provides a strong disincentive to marry and a very powerful incentive to charge higher bride prices. We have laws like this in Europe. Marriages keep happening later and TFRs keep plummeting. Why would it work any different in China. Journalists always push their…

> All while populations that implemented them keep collapsing. You say it like it would be a bad thing? It's a bit weird because I have had this impression that overpopulation, not underpopulation is some kind of a problem here on our home planet...

Yeah but have your heard, growth urbanism modern agriculture electric cars facebook users blah blah, that now its considered elitist to believe in "overpopulation"

Or as Snow Crash put it, "the industry runs on biomass"

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#109

Post by hak8or »

131sdfdasf wrote: post #13
hkai wrote: post #2

I am planning to hopefully marry my girlfriend in the next couple of years and her parents are already asking for "at least a small amount like 10,000 USD", because "I'm white anyway", meaning I must be rich. Taking into account all the abuse she had to take from them, and their lazy and useless way of life, they're not getting a penny from me. Many people though feel powerless to resist and ruin themselves financial…

How does $10k mean they think you are rich? That's chump change. They are being generous.

What on earth is up with this mentality here on HN? I get that most of the people here are in tech and making probably at minimum 70k right out of college, with the higher end ones making 100k out of college.

But surely you can't be serous? This 10k payment idea doesn't apply just to higher incom folks like you, this applies to a decent portion of the population there most of which is making less than 30k a year. 10k for someone who makes 100k in the USA is very diffirent than to someone making 30k in China.

Surely you are well aware that you are easily in the top percentile of the world regarding income, right?

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#110

Post by mnm1 »

buckminster wrote: post #69
liftbigweights wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another false trope pushed by everyone... "Women are marrying later and having less kids because of career concerns, lack of maternity leave and child benefits." The countries with the best maternity leave and child benefits have the oldest marriage and lowest birth rates. And japan, where most women give up their jobs once married to start families and where the government pays women to have children have one of the…

It's contraception. The solution is for the government to randomly introduce placebos into the contraceptive supply. Or just accept that, given the choice, people don't want kids that much.

That's one of the craziest things I've ever heard proposed, but I assume it's a joke. Otherwise would said government pay for raising this child? Or are we going to treat this like pro-life supporters do in the US and only care about babies up until the point where they are born. I simply don't understand why we would want overpopulation and especially unwanted children who will likely grow up in a foster home being beaten and raped, unwanted by anyone. It's hard enough being born to a family that loves one and has the means to support one. These kind of ideas remind me of the Romanian ban on contraception during the communist years. That did not work out well at all and neither would this (introducing placebos). I'm quite sure society can adjust and accept the fact that fewer people want kids or even marriage. It's already started in many countries and so far seems to be just fine.
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